2 May 2007 - 11:47
  • News ID: 103688

Oil prices inched up on Wednesday on renewed buying interest, after a slide the previous session on an expected rebound in refinery production in the United States.

U.S. crude was up 7 cents at $64.47 in the Asian session, after losing $1.31 the previous session. London Brent crude for June gained 29 cents at $67.29 a barrel, after falling 65 cents on Tuesday.

 

U.S. refinery production is expected to have increased to help companies build up stockpiles ahead of peak summer demand, outweighing a forecast drop in gasoline inventories last week in data due later on Wednesday, analysts said in a Reuters survey.

 

"The tight gasoline market may have moved the prices slightly but traders aren"t really worried about it as refiner runs are expected to go up and crude inventories are expected to be reasonable," said Takeda Makoto, analyst at Bansei Securities.

 

The one million-barrel fall seen for gasoline stocks would be the 12th consecutive weekly drop since Feb. 2, but refinery runs, which many analysts saw as key to last week"s data, are expected to have risen by 0.7 percentage points to 88.5% of capacity.

 

PIN/CNBC.COM

News ID 103688

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